Self-Taught MBA Podcast

To Investors,

“Capital flows to where it’s treated best.”

I’ve been pondering why the venture capital ecosystem in South Africa isn’t as vigorous as it is in other regions globally. We can talk about politics, demographics, and any of the many social issues; but I think that, although the space has grown significantly over the years, the South African venture capital ecosystem isn’t surging because fund managers aren’t using the righ...

To Investors,

Last year I wrote a letter to this group suggesting that the South African government should intentionally make Eskom smaller, reduce Eskom’s market share in the energy supply chain, for the benefit of Eskom itself – and for the benefit of South Africans. I wanted to re-publish the letter to reach out to more industry insiders and capital allocators for comments on the idea.

I’ve copied and pasted the original letter, b...

To Investors,

Today’s letter features a guest post by Ross Jenvey, a former Partner at Kingson Capital, with eight years of experience as an operator in the South African venture capital industry. As an insider who's seen a fair amount in the South African VC space, I asked Ross to answer four key questions that can help someone trying to understand more about venture capital in South Africa and what it would take for the industry t...

To Investors,

I’m always intrigued by innovative ways of doing traditional things. I’ve increasingly been intrigued by how companies are looking at bitcoin and deciding on how to participate in the bitcoin market. Today I want to talk about what it means to run a company on a Bitcoin Standard.

So, for starters, if a company runs on a bitcoin standard it means that the company adopts bitcoin as its unit of account, store of value, and...

To Investors,

Last week investors and fans gathered for another Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting. Towards the end of the meeting Warren Buffett announced that he’s stepping down as Berkshire CEO and will remain only as Chairman.

This marked the end of an era and I’d be remiss to not note this in a letter to investors as we all ponder why he retired.

But before we get into why I think Buffett retired, a quick recap of Berkshir...

To Investors,

In previous letters, while researching and writing about the significance of the recently imposed U.S. trade tariffs and various trade dynamics, I’ve also become increasingly aware of companies or projects which are deemed national champions. One example that I can’t get out of my mind is a rare earths producer and soon-to-be permanent magnet producer called MP Materials — a U.S. national champion. Another broader exam...

To Investors,

The other day I came across a post from Steven Bartlett about how there isn’t enough of a discussion about AI agents and how they are disrupting every industry. I wanted to discuss how these agents apply to the fields that I’m involved in, and even though I’ve tracked a lot of this activity for years, I’m continuously mind-blown at the information that I come across.

What are AI agents?

AI agents are software systems tha...

To Investors,

By chance I came across some lessons about how the Yale Endowment grew from $1 billion to $30 billion between 1985 and 2021. The architect of that achievement was a guy called David Swensen, who was the Yale endowment’s chief investment officer in that period. His strategy for running the Yale endowment is referred to by capital allocators as a case study called the Yale Endowment Asset Allocation Model. Now I nerd-out...

To Investors,

In a previous letter I had mentioned how one of the main reasons for the U.S. imposing tariffs on imports is to create supply chain resiliency in key industries. I glossed through the specifics in that letter, but today I want to double-click on the rare earth minerals supply chain, why it’s important globally, but especially for the U.S., and how a company called MP Materials may emerge as one of the biggest beneficia...

To Investors,

Yesterday I did something a little unusual, I asked Perplexity to give me the three South African stocks that it thinks are the most attractive to buy right now. I also told the model to optimise for companies that can be resilient in any market condition, but that also have significant future upside.

The first stock that Perplexity recommended is The Foschini Group (TFG). The reasons where:

* Why it stands out: Forecast...

To Investors,

The last 12 or so days have been wild. Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement shook everyone. Global stock markets were down, then went back up, tensions were high as some national leaders felt the need to announce retaliatory tariffs, and other leaders such as the Vietnamese President and President of the European Commission quickly jumped right to suggesting zero tariffs for the U.S. in order to express their des...

To Investors,

On April 2nd President Trump announced a wide range of tariffs on goods imported into the United States. This day was called “Liberation Day”. But you might wonder: ‘liberation from what? The United States of America is not a slave to anyone, or constrained by anything?’ Today I want to explain Liberation Day, break down what all of these tariffs mean, how we got here, and to highlight the hypocrisy which a lot of coun...

To Investors,

In any business, in any industry, revenue growth can be a dazzling figure, until you look behind the curtain. One term that I recently understood is “round-tripping revenue,” a practice where companies inflate their top lines through reciprocal deals that don’t always create real economic value. Today I wanna look at what round-tripping revenue means, whether it's legal or not, and how it might tie into NVIDIA’s cozy r...